GDC 12http://www.pcper.com
PC Perspectivehttp://www.pcper.com/images/podcast-logo-600x600.pngenGDC 12: Blast from GDC Past - Programmer's Challenge 2007http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-Blast-GDC-Past-Programmers-Challenge-2007
<p>The Game Developers Conference (GDC) has a long history of being underappreciated by the general public. GDC has become more mainstream than it once was. Five years ago, a panel called &ldquo;Programmer&rsquo;s Challenge&rdquo; -- Jeopardy for videogame programmers -- was in its fifth iteration and submitted to Google Video. Check out what GDC once was.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-7887992164379673634&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=true" style="width: 400px; height: 326px;" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>Take a bunch of programmers and ask them what happens when you XOR Frosted Flakes and Frosted Cheerios</em></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>I'm not kidding.</em></p>
<p>Questions from the Programmer&rsquo;s Challenge are very entertaining and well worth the 45 minutes it takes to watch. It is exactly what you should expect from a Jeopardy game with &ldquo;Blizzard Sues Everyone&rdquo; as an example category title.</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>You are a high level EA executive. You have 327,600 man hours of game development to complete in the 12 weeks before Christmas. If you have 300 employees working 40 hours a week, how many hours of unpaid overtime per week should you force each employee to do before laying them off in January?</em></p>
<p>Part of the fun is keeping up with the logic puzzles which get quite difficult. The game rounds out near the end with binary algebra of breakfast cereals. Put a little smile in your Tuesday.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-Blast-GDC-Past-Programmers-Challenge-2007" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-Blast-GDC-Past-Programmers-Challenge-2007#commentsEditorialShows and ExposGDCGDC 12Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:45:58 +0000Scott Michaud53783 at http://www.pcper.comGDC 12: Valve & Razer renew their motion partnership vowshttp://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Valve-Razer-renew-their-motion-partnership-vows
<p><em>Valve and Razer <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/gdc-2012-razer-hydra-brings-motion-control-to-valve-pc-titles-2012-03">formally agree to support</a> Razer Hydra motion controller in Valve&rsquo;s four most popular titles and two upcoming ones.</em></p>
<p>A little over two years ago, Valve and Razer <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/press/detail/press-releases/Razer-and-Sixense-Collaborate-To-Bring-Motion-Sensing-Controls-to-PC-Gaming">announced a partnership</a> for their Sixense high-precision motion controllers. During CES 2010, attendees were able to experiment with a prototype motion controller from Sixense to control Left 4 Dead 2. Sixense TrueMotion controllers were later released by Razer last June as the Razer Hydra.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><iframe width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7_1Ao2cd5BM"></iframe></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>Now you're thinking with controllers.</em></p>
<p>This Game Developers Conference (GDC) fast forwards us to almost a year after the launch of the Razer Hydra. The price for the controller has dropped $40 to $99.99 at some point between then and now. Valve has also announced that support would be extended from Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 to include Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and upcoming Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.</p>
<p>The fishiest part of this whole announcement involves <a href="http://pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced">the Steam Box rumor</a> from a few days ago. Valve appears to be very focused on the best portions of console gaming for the PC all of a sudden. I could easily see motion controls be used to support The Steam Box or whatever it might be called -- especially if it were used for more than just gaming and by more than just gamers.</p>
<p>So what do you all think?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Valve-Razer-renew-their-motion-partnership-vows" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Valve-Razer-renew-their-motion-partnership-vows#commentsGeneral TechShows and ExposGDCGDC 12Steam BoxvalveTue, 06 Mar 2012 08:41:33 +0000Scott Michaud53782 at http://www.pcper.comGDC 12: Cry moar! Crytek to demo GFace, Warface, and more.http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Cry-moar-Crytek-demo-GFace-Warface-and-more
<p><em>Crytek <a href="http://www.crytek.com/news/crytek-attends-gdc-with-massive-line-up">unveils their large presence</a> at Game Developers&rsquo; Conference (GDC 2012) occurring next week: what projects will be on the show floor and what projects will be discussed privately by appointment.</em></p>
<p>The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) tends to be where most gamers get their overdose of gaming news. Much fewer gamers know of the Game Developers&rsquo; Conference which occurs about three months earlier. Especially over recent years, GDC coverage sometimes ends up more exciting than E3 with announcements being more technical and oriented to developers.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Cry-moar-Crytek-demo-GFace-Warface-and-more" class="inline-image-link" title="View: Crysis2.jpg"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2012-03-03/Crysis2.jpg" alt="Crysis2.jpg" title="Crysis2.jpg" class="pcper-inline" width="550" height="298" /></a></div></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>A call out to interested developers.</em></p>
<p>Crytek published a press release on their website outlining their products. The release is quite cryptic in its wording, but more information should be available soon.</p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>GFACE<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>GFACE, our recently announced social entertainment service, and its business development team is on the lookout for fun third-party social, casual, core free2play games that can complement our launch line up. Everyone interested in becoming part of GFACE should contact us at <a href="mailto:dev@gface.com">dev@gface.com</a> to set up an appointment to learn more about the GFACE Social Media Publishing Platform to &ldquo;Play.Together.Live.&rdquo;<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>Warface<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>Crytek&rsquo;s first freemium PC Online FPS Game Service Warface invites players to check out our PVE and PVP gameplay.<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>CryENGINE&reg; 3<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>GDC attendees can participate in CryENGINE presentations every full hour. Topics that will be covered are next-generation DX 11 graphics and tools upgrades, Cinebox, creating characters for CryENGINE, AI Systems, UI Actions and Flow Graph and After Action feature set for Serious Games.<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>CryENGINE&reg;3 Cinebox&trade; will also be on the showfloor and we&rsquo;d love to show you more about it.&nbsp;For more information, please visit mycryengine.com or contact us at <a href="mailto:mycryengine@crytek.com">mycryengine@crytek.com</a><br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>RTI<br />
</em></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><em>Real Time Immersive, Inc. (RTI) is a simulation and serious games studio established to support CryENGINE&reg; licensees in the serious game and simulation market space. The team will be present on the show floor and show their latest developments.</em></p>
<p>Crytek uses their own vocabulary to categories projects which use their engine. Your project is a &ldquo;Game&rdquo; if it is a typical videogame such as Crysis or Mechwarrior Online. Your project is a &ldquo;Serious Game&rdquo; if you use their game technology for professional applications such as Lockheed Martin developing or demonstrating aircraft technology. Your project is a &ldquo;Visualization&rdquo; if you use game technology to demonstrate architecture or produce TV, film, and similar content in the engine.</p>
<p>I am most interested to find out more details about Warface and specifically find out what they could possibly be describing as a FPS Game Service with PVE gameplay. How about you? Comment away.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Cry-moar-Crytek-demo-GFace-Warface-and-more" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/GDC-12-Cry-moar-Crytek-demo-GFace-Warface-and-more#commentsGeneral TechShows and ExposcrytekGDCGDC 12Sun, 04 Mar 2012 02:18:25 +0000Scott Michaud53750 at http://www.pcper.comGDC 12: The bigger big picture, Steam Box to be announced?http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced
<p><em>It is rumored that Valve will <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/2/2840932/exclusive-valve-steam-box-gaming-console">announce a Steam hardware platform</a> as early as GDC next week although that could be pushed back as late as E3 in June.</em></p>
<p>Steam has grown atop the PC platform and consists of over 40 million active user accounts. For perspective, the Xbox 360 has sold 65.8 million units to date and that includes units sold to users whose older Xbox 360s died and they did not go the cardboard coffin route. Of course the study does not account for the level of hardware performance each user can utilize although Valve does keep regular surveys of that.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced" class="inline-image-link" title="View: BigPicture.png"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2012-03-03/BigPicture.png" alt="BigPicture.png" title="BigPicture.png" class="pcper-inline" width="550" height="263" /></a></div></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>A console with admined dedicated servers to kick the teabagging and griefing Steam punks.</em></p>
<p>Within the last couple of years, Valve has been popping in to news seemingly out of the blue. Allow me to draw your attention to three main events.</p>
<p>At the last GDC, Valve announced &ldquo;<a href="http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/thebigpicture.php">The Big Picture</a>&rdquo; mode for their Steam software. The Big Picture is an interface for Steam which is friendly to users seated on a couch several feet away from a large screen TV. While &ldquo;The Big Picture&rdquo; has yet to be released it does set the stage for a great Home Theatre PC user interface for PC games as well as potentially other media.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced" class="inline-image-link" title="View: SteamController.png"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2012-03-03/SteamController.png" alt="SteamController.png" title="SteamController.png" class="pcper-inline" width="500" height="402" /></a></div></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>I must admit, that controller does not look the most ergonomic... but it is just a patent filing.</em></p>
<p>Last year, Valve also <a href="http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20110105231#b">filed a patent</a> with the US Patent Office for a video game controller with user swappable control components. Their patent filings show a controller which looks quite similar to an Xbox 360 controller where the thumbsticks can be replaced with touch pads as well as a trackball and potentially other devices. Return of Missile Command anyone?</p>
<p>Also a little over two years ago, Valve announced a <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/press/detail/press-releases/Razer-and-Sixense-Collaborate-To-Bring-Motion-Sensing-Controls-to-PC-Gaming">partnership with Razer</a> for their Sixense high-precision motion controllers. It is possible that Valve was supporting this technology for this future all along. While motion controllers have not proven to be successful for gaming, they are accepted as a method to control a device. Perhaps The Big Picture will be optimized to support Sixense and compatible devices?</p>
<p>The Verge goes beyond their claims that Valve will announce The Steam Box and has included specifications for a closed-doors prototype of the system. The system was rumored to be used to present to partners at CES contained an Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU.</p>
<p class="rtecenter"><div class = "center-article-image"><a href="/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced" class="inline-image-link" title="View: SteamHW.png"><img src="/files/imagecache/article_max_width/news/2012-03-03/SteamHW.png" alt="SteamHW.png" title="SteamHW.png" class="pcper-inline" width="550" height="183" /></a></div></p>
<p class="rtecenter"><em>You know if Microsoft had focused on Media Center for gaming rather than the Xbox...</em></p>
<p>It is very unclear whether Valve will attempt to take a loss on the platform in hopes to make it back up in Steam commissions. It is possible that Valve will just push the platform to OEM partners, but it is possible that they will release and market their own canon device.</p>
<p>I am interested to see how Valve will push the Home Theatre PC market. The main disadvantage that the PC platform has at the moment is simply marketing and development money. It is also possible that they wish to expand out and support other media through their Steam service as well.</p>
<p>At the very least, we should have a viable Home Theatre PC user interface as well as sharp lines between hardware profiles. A developer on the PC would love to know the exact number of potential users they should expect if they were to support a certain hardware configuration. Valve was always keen on supplying hardware profile statistics, and this is certainly a harsh evolution of that.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/GDC-12-bigger-big-picture-Steam-Box-be-announced#commentsEditorialGeneral TechSystemsShows and ExposGDC 12steamSteam BoxvalveSat, 03 Mar 2012 22:16:20 +0000Scott Michaud53740 at http://www.pcper.com